2011 Nigeria National Elections
13
days — and was in violation of the law, which mandated that voter registration stop at least 120 days
prior to elections. To make matters worse, INEC's final 2007 tally of registered voters was 61
million, a highly unlikely number based on the number of machines, employees and daily registration
rates during the aforementioned time period. Given that INEC also neglected to display the voter
registration information as mandated, the voter registry was almost certainly manipulated to facilitate
fraud in the 2007 elections. Even if the 2007 registry was legitimate, Jega's INEC far outperformed
the INEC of his predecessor: in 2011, INEC registered an average of 2,822,764 voters per day; in
2006, INEC averaged no more than 622,449 voters per day (and probably fewer given the
questionable figures reported). The 2011 voter register was built at least four times faster than the
flawed register of 2007, and represented a clear improvement over 2007, both in logistics and
credibility.
Political Party Primaries
IRI has frequently cited lack of internal party democracy as a concern in past Nigerian elections.
Various state governors and powerful local elites (referred to as "godfathers") have sponsored
candidates who did not have to compete in free and fair internal primaries within their respective
parties. On some occasions, governors and "godfathers" have substituted candidates whose names
had been forwarded to INEC without providing valid and verifiable reasons, as required by the law.
This phenomenon led to resentment and frustration among Nigerians and members of the various
political parties. The courts—acting as the last line of defense against this blatant nepotism—
responded by annulling the 2007 governorship elections in the states of Imo and Rivers, as well as
numerous state and national assembly elections.
To combat the absence of internal party democracy within the nomination processes of political
parties, the national assembly included a section in the 2010 Electoral Act that defined how parties
may conduct their primaries. This section (Part V – Political Parties, Section 87: "Nomination of
candidates by parties") established transparent procedures for political party primaries. In addition,
the act stipulated that "the aspirant [within each party] with the highest number of votes at the end
of voting…shall be declared the winner" and "the aspirant's name shall be forwarded to the
commission [INEC]…" as the candidate of the party. Unfortunately, most political parties
circumvented whichever aspects of the particular provisions that they deemed unfavorable to their
nomination processes. Many political parties altered their lists of delegates outside of the prescribed
procedures or coerced aspirants to drop their ambitions—ostensibly on the grounds of "achieving
consensus." Others simply submitted a different list to INEC that left off the names of individuals
who won their respective party primary elections, but—for whatever reason—were deemed to not
be official party candidates by party leadership.
Before the commencement of the political party primaries, the national assembly inserted a
provision into the amended Electoral Act, which specified that INEC must accept the list of
candidates a party proposes to sponsor and "shall not reject or disqualify candidates for any reason
whatsoever." INEC, therefore, had no power to enforce section 87 and could not reject party
candidates, even those who were not elected democratically via the prescribed party primary process.
The 2010 Electoral Act, as amended, did not improve the conduct of the party primaries. In many
states, for example, authentic party delegates to the primary elections were disenfranchised, leading
to disintegration or weakening of the party in the states concerned. In other states, delegates were
directed by their state governors not to meet with certain aspirants seeking the party's nomination as
